Believe
by WitchcraftAndTrickery
Summary: Dean Winchester didn't believe in angels. Not until an angel believed in him. A drabble-esque insight into Dean's view on angels.


Dean Winchester didn't believe in angels. Not anymore.

Because thing was, he had at the start. He'd lay back in his Batman bedsheets, the blue blanket Mommy had made tucked in around him, and he'd blink up at his mother as she told him stories. She'd click the light off, and the room would be dark, and Dean would be afraid of the shadowy corners of the room, but it would be okay, because Mom would stroke his hair back and whisper, "It's okay, baby. Angels are watching over you."

And that had been so easy to believe. Because of course angels were watching over him. Mommy was an angel, he knew. With her shiny yellow hair and big blue eyes and jumpers that always smelled of powder and soap and flowers. And Daddy, big and strong and funny, who always smelled faintly of oil from the garage. Dean hadn't minded. He was safe.

When Sammy was born, Dean prayed to the angels to look after his baby brother and Mom. Sam wasn't an easy baby, everyone had been saying; difficult, somehow, and Dean could hear Mom's cries behind the door of the hospital. He'd been scared, but he was certain – he _knew _– that angels were watching over them. They'd be safe.

The first time he'd held Sammy, so tiny and fragile in his own pudgy little arms, Dean had been struck with something he would never learn to verbalise. This little human, the bundle of blankets with the softball size head and inch long fingers, was _his_. It was his brother. Half of him. They'd be best friends one day, Dean was sure of it. He never wanted to let him go, not even when Mom had reached out to gather him back to her shoulder. Dean's eyes were fixed on the bundle as he murmured, "Don't you worry, Sammy. Angels are watching over you. And so am I."

Dean Winchester didn't believe in angels. Not since Mom died.

Because when Dad had thrust Sammy into his arms, barking the order to _get outside, take your brother and go, now Dean, __**go**_, and Dean had seen the yellow-red-orange light from Sammy's room, the angels stopped watching. There were no angels watching Dean and Sam as they huddled into their father's jacket, watching their lives burn to ashes.

There were no angels watching them that first year, when Dad swung from angry to miserable to maddeningly, deafeningly quiet. That was Dean's year, the year he stepped up to take care of Sammy, to remind Dad that there was no food, that Sammy needed more diapers, that _please, Daddy, it's late, can we stop the car? Sammy's tired…_

There were no angels watching them when Dad found his first ghost, when Dean's reality crumbled. He still remembered the raw fear, the bile rising in his throat, the scream that caught in his gut and just stayed there, trembling, threatening to rip him apart as the spectre shrieked toward his father. Dad had just roughly pushed a shotgun into his hands – far too large for his scrawny arms – and told him to _shoot first, ask questions later_.

There were never any angels. There was never anything except Dean, and Dad, and Sam. And Dad and Sam were Dean's job. He had to look after them. That's what Mom would've wanted. That's what a good son did.

Dean Winchester didn't believe in angels. Faith didn't leave him straight away – he didn't wake up one day and find it gone. It was gradual, subtle, until the one day he realised he'd lost it long ago.

Dean Winchester didn't believe in angels, because there were no angels worth believing in.

But Hell changed that.

Dean remembered Hell, he remembered the torture both inflicted on and by him, he remembered waking up to musty darkness and thinking that this time, strangely, it was different. What Dean didn't remember was the blinding light that filled the space that had been himself, and he didn't know – couldn't know – that that blinding light was a minor warrior angel named Castiel.

And at first, he refused to believe it, though everything told him differently. Angels weren't there. Angels didn't watch. There were no angels, and if there were, they _wouldn't care about Dean_.

That itself was something Castiel had understood on their first meeting. "You don't believe you deserve to be saved," he had said, comprehension dawning on borrowed features.

Dean could never understand why this angel was so determined to contact him, to speak to him, to know him as a human as he already knew his soul. He could never understand how proud of him this angel was. He could never understand the depths of new and giddying heights of freedom and emotion and raw, blinding, euphoric humanity that he inspired in this angel.

He wouldn't understand until that angel fell from heaven itself to keep him safe. Until that angel fought and bled and died time and again to protect him. Until that angel looked him in the eye and told him exactly what his innermost thoughts already screamed.

Dean Winchester didn't believe in angels. Not until an angel believed in him.

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_**Hey guys, as usual, reviews are rated highly by me (the author)!**_

_**I can't stop writing observations on Supernatural...**_


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